Journal article
Why we need a gradient approach to word order
N Levshina, S Namboodiripad, M Allassonnière-Tang, M Kramer, L Talamo, A Verkerk, S Wilmoth, GG Rodriguez, TM Gupton, E Kidd, Z Liu, C Naccarato, R Nordlinger, A Panova, N Stoynova
Linguistics | Published : 2023
Abstract
This article argues for a gradient approach to word order, which treats word order preferences, both within and across languages, as a continuous variable. Word order variability should be regarded as a basic assumption, rather than as something exceptional. Although this approach follows naturally from the emergentist usage-based view of language, we argue that it can be beneficial for all frameworks and linguistic domains, including language acquisition, processing, typology, language contact, language evolution and change, and formal approaches. Gradient approaches have been very fruitful in some domains, such as language processing, but their potential is not fully realized yet. This may..
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Awarded by Agence Nationale de la Recherche
Funding Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the participants and audience at the 2020 SLE workshop "New Approaches to Word Order", where this collaboration was first conceived. In addition, the authors are grateful to Calle Boerstell, Josef Fruehwald, Ingo Feldhausen, the two anonymous reviewers, and our editor Volker Gast for their helpful feedback on previous versions of this paper. Natalia Levshina's work on this project was funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) under Gravitation grant Language in Interaction (024.001.006). Marc Allassonniere-Tang is thankful for the support of the French National Research Agency (ANR-20-CE27-0021). The contribution by Chiara Naccarato, Anastasia Panova and Natalia Stoynova was supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation within Agreement No 075-15-2020-793.